Sacramentary of St. Petersburg

Regensburg, second third of the eleventh century (1046- 1048?), parchment; ff. 109; mm 175 × 122.

Already kept in St. Petersburg, Rossijskaia Nacionalnaja Biblioteka, ms Q. v. I Nr. 25, it was destroyed at Warsaw during the Second World conflict.

Written in Regensburg for the Aquileian Church, and destroyed during the Second World conflict, the codex is known only thanks to a catalogue record.

The Sacramentary, which belonged to the big collection of Józef Andrzej Załuski (1702-1774), was destroyed during the Second World conflict in Warsaw, where it was transferred from St. Petersburg following to the Treaty of Riga (1921). The manuscript, known only thanks to Antonio Staerk’s description, where a facsimile thereof was also published, was probably drawn out for Aquileia, since in the Exultet chant (f. 53r) reference is made also to a patriarch (whose name is erased), as well as to the pope Leo IX (1048-1054) and to an emperor named Henry (either Henry II, 1002-1024, or Henry III, 1046-1056).

The palaeographic characteristics of the manuscript, as well as the ornamented initial with Ottonian peculiarities, trace back to Regensburg towards the second third of the eleventh century.